Windows 10 is still FREE to upgrade

[Mathilda]

I've never liked Ubuntu. I've always preferred OpenSuse. It has always been a more intutive interface for those that use Windows, which ironically I hardly ever do.

Anyway, still can't upgrade the laptop. Downloaded the GWX tool again to make sure I could get the Windows 10 updates but no luck. I tried creating an install disk for Windows 7 from the MS website but after inputting my Windows key was told that I could not do this because the software has been pre-installed. I'm considering wiping over Windows completely because it was always a complete dog and practically unusable even when the laptop was brand new.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I still wonder why people have issues with Windows. Started using MS-Dos in the '80s. Can't be that hard if an old fool like me has no problems.

[Dānu]

It's all a matter of what you're used to using. When I switched from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, I had to learn the NT way of doing things, which involved a lot of new things to learn. And then when I was working with NT, I found that not everything I took for granted in 2000 was the same in NT. If you're familiar with something, it's easier than having to start over and learn everything anew. Intuitiveness helps, but most of any modern operating system requires a learning curve to figure out how to use it. The only critical differences between Windows and Linux are the apps they run, security models employed and whether they're effective, and support / updates. The latter is drastically different in Linux and varies from distro to distro. I ran a Solaris desktop for a while and I was always behind in keeping it updated due to its support structure.

[Cheerful Charlie]

I never had any success with Linux Ubuntu.  Altogether too "clumsy" as an OS, and largely unintuitive.

And which sorts of reasons I'd be guessing is why nobody's using it.     

Desktop OS market share according to NetMarketShare for September 2019. (Chrome OS is also based on the Linux kernel.)

Windows...  87.76%
macOS... 9.61%
Linux... 2.06%
Unknown... 0.38%
Chrome OS... 0.18%

For a good, reasonable, stable, easy to use distro, try Mageia.  It is an offshoot of Mandrake/Mandriva, and seems to upgrade well besides.  I set my brother up with it and his system upgraded from Mageia 6 to 7 without any problems.  I am using Mageia 5, which I love because it still has KDE 4.13 which I love.

Linux fails on the desktop because major desk top environment creators keep fucking up.  KDE 4 was released long before it was usable, and the major distros went with it anyway.  It took 18 months to get straightened out.  Then Gnome screwed up their DE and it is still a bit of a hot mess.  Then Ubuntu went with their failed Unity desktop DE, which only a few people liked.  So Linux gained a bad reputation because of this crap.  KDE 5 has some serious regressions, and Gnome forks like Cinnamon and Mate just add to the confusion.  Their are the windowing systems that are far too alien for windows users to grok or love.  And CLI scares a lot of people away.  And then there are swarms of lesser systems, xfce which is popular for some, but still is a bit spartan for Windows refugees.  Enlightenment is a geek toy that has a steep learning curve to wrangle.

This all is what killed Linux on the desktop.  Plus gaming, as Linux games are too easy to pirate, so a lot of AAA games will not ever be ported as their DRM systems are hard to make work on Linux.  And a lot of people have to work with Windows for their job.  WINE is only now becoming good enough to run necessary Windows programs under Linux.

There is also the problem of choosing one of hundreds of distros and learning that system.